Xbox Live on the 360 is divided into two services: Xbox Live Silver and Xbox Live Gold.

Xbox Live Silver is a free service that ships with all Xbox 360s and allows any Xbox 360 user with a broadband connection to get online and create a gamer tag as well as a new ID type called a gamer card. The gamer card is a profile that displays a gamer's interests, skill level, competitiveness and gaming accomplishments. In addition, gamers can use Xbox Live Silver to chat, download content and play certain games. Xbox Live Silver allows gamers to access most of the features of Xbox Live. The one key feature missing from the free service is the ability to play multiplayer games online.

In order to play in multiplayer matches online, you must upgrade to the subscription service known as Xbox Live Gold. The Gold service has all the functionality of Silver plus the ability to play multiplayer games. Additionally, Xbox Live Gold has exclusive content, tournaments and Xbox Live events.

Both Silver and Gold are able to access the Xbox Marketplace. The Marketplace is a new online feature that enables one-stop shopping for Xbox Live gamers to buy additional content, demos, videos, music and more through a microtransaction system.

In the Marketplace, real money translates into points, and gamers use these points to buy things. They can either buy points in the real world in the form of cards purchased at retail locations or use credit cards to buy points online. Microsoft hopes that one day, the Marketplace will be where gamers sell their own, user-created content to one another.

what is interesting about the marketplace is you can buy market points at your local store and you can use those points to access downloadable content......NG has free DLC so people with NG can get the HP with 360

im not sure if you can play XBOX live games on 360

what im interested in is if you can buy market point cards at a store maybe you can with XBOX live gold (without a credit card)?

there are some rumors that you can play online on weekends or on certain weekends